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Poltergeists · Possessions and exorcisms

Stambeli – Black Spirits and White Saints of Tunis

When
since c. 1700 date from records made at the time
Where
Medina of Tunis (zawiya of Sidi Ali al-Asmar), Tunisia
Verdict
Legend

Descendants of enslaved people from the Sahel summon spirits in Tunis to the sound of the gumbri lute – and the possession is meant to heal, not frighten.

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36.80°, 10.17° · dimmed: other phenomena within 1,500 km

What happened

Stambeli (stambali) is a healing possession rite created in Tunisia by Black Tunisians – descendants of people carried across the Sahara from the lands of today's Niger, Nigeria and Mali. They brought the beliefs of the Hausa, Kanuri and Songhay, which in Tunis merged with the Islamic cult of saints. The result was a pantheon of “Black spirits” from the Sahel and “White saints” of the Maghreb. To the music of the three-stringed gumbri lute and the iron shqashiq clappers, participants fall into trance and the spirits enter their bodies to cure illness, ward off the evil eye or demand an offering. One of the two main groups was the community tied to the zawiya (shrine) of Sidi Ali al-Asmar in Tunis; there only the medium, the arifa, is possessed on behalf of clients, who simply watch. Followers regard Sidi Bilal, a freed slave and the first muezzin of Islam, as the brotherhood's founder. The earliest written mentions of such rites date from the 18th century.

Witnesses

Members of the stambeli communities in Tunis; the ethnomusicologist Richard C. Jankowsky, who spent nearly two years with them and described them in his book “Stambeli” (2010). The first accounts of rituals among Black Tunisians date from the 18th century.

Explanations and hypotheses

Scholars describe stambeli as adorcism – rather than driving spirits out, participants build a lasting relationship with them, sustained by music and dance. Jankowsky shows that the rite preserved the memory of slavery and displacement, and was also a way for Black Tunisians to make their place in society. Stambeli resembles Moroccan Gnawa, Egyptian zar and West African bori. Some derive the name from “sambeli” (among the Songhay, an illness caused by sorcery), others from “istanbuli,” because Ottoman officials patronized the rite. In the 20th century the tradition nearly died out; today some of the music is performed on stage, without the ritual.

Legend A story handed down through generations – it can be neither confirmed nor disproved.

Sources

  1. Richard C. Jankowsky, Stambeli: Music, Trance, and Alterity in Tunisia (University of Chicago Press, 2010)
  2. Black Spirits, White Saints: Sub-Saharan Music, Spirit Possession and the Geo-Cultural Imagination in North Africa (UKRI Gateway to Research)
  3. Black spirits, white saints – The Stambeli
  4. The Markaz – Celebrating Mawlid An-Nabaoui with Stambeli Trance in Tunis

More: Wikipedia (en)